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Wild Hearts Review: an impressive monster warrior, perfect for those new to beast combat


There is a poem on the way Wild Heart carved very freely from Monster Hunter. After all, Monster Hunter is a series about an unknown newcomer who overthrows ancient beasts, chopping their best pieces to create weapons and armor. Forget the sleeves, Wild Hearts wears its inspirations as a complete garment made from the bones, fur, and teeth of Capcom’s increasingly popular series. Sure these materials may feel inferior to the overall look they’re harvested from, but they’re still worn with pride and confidence.

Besides, as a rare rival to Monster Hunter, Wild Hearts is well aware of the difficulties involved in trying to create something new. Perhaps this is why the monster warrior of the Omega Force is so welcoming to newcomers. Ultimately, it’s a game that’s ready to teach players why this age-old genre is so critically acclaimed. Wild Hearts is the perfect starting point for anyone who has ever dreamed of becoming a Monster Hunter. A great, melodramatic time plagued by occasional frustrating performance issues on PCs.

Wild Hearts revolves around killing monsters or hunting them down if you want. The village of Minato is under constant threat from the ferocious Kemono, giant creatures that destroy their surroundings without regard for the human structures they destroy. Pigs, chickens, hedgehogs, giant squirrels and many other creatures are not docile or peaceful but extremely dangerous. As a hunter, you are the only thing stopping Minoto from being completely crushed by a giant tree branch pulled from the ground by a fire-breathing gorilla.

Battles follow a strict loop. You choose which beast you want to fight from the map, then after tracking you will find the monster who will proceed to gather everything in its power to make sure you have a good time. extremely terrible. Battles are tense and chaotic, often lasting well past the 20-minute mark as you desperately try to take down this giant creature without the comforting aid of a health bar letting you know you’ve advanced. how close to the goal. There is a rhythm to fighting, a balance and rhythm to your death dance. During the small period of calm, you’ll drain your health juices, and the monster will also retreat to its lair to lick its wounds as you both prepare for your next encounter. After tracking it again and finally delivering the final blow, the battered corpse can be harvested for valuable upgrade material that will aid you in your future monster-slaying efforts.


A hunter in warm clothes stares at a wooden robot.
You are always accompanied by these little wooden cyborgs who act as the Wild Heart equivalent of the Monster Hunter’s Palicoes. While they are just as capable as Monster Hunter’s companions, they are not cats and are essentially worse.

Of course, this will be very familiar to anyone who has played Monster Hunter before. Structurally, the two are almost identical, but why fix what’s not broken? Repetition and routine is what makes Monster Hunter so appealing, and by removing that wholesale formula from the competition, Wild Hearts has succeeded in capturing that magic. Yes, you will hunt the same monster over and over again. It will attack you with the same moves. You will be knocked down again, again and again. But don’t fret. Above all, your goal here is mastery. Not a new pair of boots or a panda face hat. own. The ability to predict what a monster will do next and counter it without being hit. That’s the fun of Monster Hunter, and it can be easily found in Wild Hearts.

Of course, not everything is exactly the same. The biggest difference is in the Karakuri form, an ability that allows your hunter to summon boxes and tools from thin air using a harvestable resource called Thread. These jewels act as your special moves and allow you to both counter and deal damage to Kemono. A Karakuri allows you to stack multiple crates, allowing you to perform a devastating attack jump by jumping from atop of them. A spring safely gets you out of the way of an attacking monster. A small helicopter lets you glide gracefully over the chaos before stabbing a creature’s exposed brain.

Attempting to fight a monster while fighting Karakuri is initially elusive, but quickly becomes second nature. It helps that more complex constructions – created by combining different types of Karakuri’s bases – are made available to the player gradually as you progress through the main story. Before long, you’re building bombs, wobbling hammers, and reinforced walls to knock enemies out and hurl them through the air like a punctured Thanksgiving parade ball.


A giant dog-like creature attacked by a hunter with a large sword.
The Gritdog – a cross between a dog and a raccoon – is my favorite monster in the pack. They have the ability to mimic your Karakui, creating bombs and walls from a soot-like substance. They also have a little belly patting movement, which is both adorable and dangerous.

Smashing a big pig with a hammer made me laugh the whole time playing the game. The simple joke of a giant wooden mallet slamming into an unexpected creature never gets old. Karakuri makes battles more dynamic and exciting, sure, but they also make them more fun, which is equally important. They can also be used outside of battle, giving you access to more fortified structures so you can carve shortcuts into the game’s open spaces. These Dragon Karakuri – as they’re referred to in the game – aren’t as exciting as the jewels you use in battle, but they do allow you to make your mark on a slightly zigzag battle arena. .

Monsters do not automatically appear on your map and must be found through wooden radio towers that you can place anywhere in a level. You can also create your own spawn points by building camps complete with cozy campfires that allow you to start hunting quests. Building the smithy while you’re out also allows you to upgrade equipment without having to trudge back to the central village. They’re small additions, but it deepens the relationship you form with these areas, places that you’re sure to return to again and again during your time with Wild Hearts.


A hunter hovers in the air with a hand-held helicopter.  With their hands free, they were shooting a large squirrel with a cannon.
Each weapon comes with special moves exclusive to Karakuri. For example, hovering in the air while using a cannon, allows you to destroy monsters from a relatively safe place in the sky in a few short moments.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the melodramatic battle bears similarities to the developer’s Dynasty Warriors hack-and-slash series. The weapons are satisfying and heavy, aided by impressive animations and innovative attack designs, but ultimately lack depth beyond a few basic combos. This isn’t necessarily an issue as Karakuri offers some additional complexity, but those looking to master a particular blade may find their options a bit limited. A host of more sophisticated weapons are unlocked halfway through – such as a cool cannon that allows you to place waste from a distance – but again, these weapons can be used expertly with significantly less investment than anything in Monster Hunter.

I don’t think this is a bad thing, mind. It speaks to the game’s commitment to serving as the best introduction to lowercase monster hunting to date. A stark contrast to the 19-year-old series that it attracted so much, Wild Hearts can attract new players in a friendly and patient way. The tutorials are contextualized through narrative quests that see you battling smaller monsters with a limited selection of weapons and Karakuri. Gradually, the game introduces slightly more complex systems like elemental effects, weapon upgrades, and the importance of eating before combat in a way that feels easy and digestible. There’s very little bloat to be found here, which is a breath of fresh air when compared to the density of recent Monster Hunter titles. If you’ve always enjoyed punching a big chicken in the ribs but have been baffled by Rise’s seemingly endless series of text-based tutorials, then Wild Hearts might be the first step you’re looking for.

However, as often happens with the first try, Wild Hearts is not without its flaws. The monsters’ designs are vibrant and expressive (their angry form, which causes trees and other plants to grow out of the ground when they roar with fury, a particular highlight) but unfortunately change is limited. This will certainly change when the inevitable DLC packs or sequels are released, but for now, some extra monsters won’t misbehave. The same is not true for the game’s story, which could benefit from scaling back. Things happen and people tell you about them, but the actual content of these conversations and events is so bland and uninteresting that I can’t really recall a single thing that happened. The fact that you are not often faced with a dialogue choice is funny. It really doesn’t matter, and the broader story can be summed up as “go and punch those monsters before they turn around and punch you”.


A hunter wearing a large fur hat is talking
Neither of these dialogue options affects the story. Sometimes the game will give you only one option, which makes no sense.

Then, of course, there are the technology issues. We covered them quite spacious already on the site, but need to reiterate: Wild Hearts performs poorly on PC due to issues around CPU bottlenecks. Achieving consistent frame rates – even on high-end hardware – is impossible. Constant stuttering game. Pop-ins are brutal. Motion blur and depth of field, enabled by default, actively make games look worse. To add insult to injury, Omega Force acknowledged these issues prior to the game’s launch, but has yet to issue any form of substantial remedial action a week after its release. On top of that, Wild Hearts runs great on consoles, making the PC version all the more boring. If it weren’t for these issues, nothing would have stopped me from gifting the game with the RPS ‘best best’ badge.

Even so, even with my stutter, I still loved my time with Wild Hearts. It’s a fierce competitor to Monster Hunter and a great starting point for those new to the genre. A small part of me doubts that the sequel will see the ideas of the game come together in a way that makes Wild Hearts essential, but even in this somewhat rudimentary form, Omega Force has created one of the best games of the year so far.

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